Syria updates: Government reportedly loses control of Daraa – DW – 12/07/2024

Syrian rebel forces have taken the southern town of Sanamayn and advanced to within 20 kilometers (12 miles) of the capital, Damascus, rebel commander Hassan Abdul-Ghani said on Saturday.

Abdul-Ghani is a commander within the Islamist-led alliance that has launched the ongoing offensive in the country’s northwest.

Sanamayn, on the main highway from Damascus to Jordan, is situated in southern Daraa province. 

According to the head of the Britain-based war monitor Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdel Rahman, the province is now completely in the hands of local rebel fighters.

The current security developments in Syria have prompted the United Nations to pull its nonessential staff from the country, while Jordan has joined the growing list of countries urging their citizens to depart.

A UN spokesperson said that the world body would continue its services to support people in Syria despite the partial withdrawal.

Jordan, which has already closed its border crossing with Syria, called on its citizens to leave the country “as soon as possible.”

Syria is seeing an intense flare-up of its long-running civil war as an Islamist-led rebel group continues to push on with a lightning offensive that aims to overthrow the government.

Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani has said he feels that Syrian President Bashar Assad did not make use of a period of calm in his country’s civil war to try to reconcile with the populace.

“Assad didn’t seize these opportunities to start engaging and restoring his relationship with his people, and we didn’t see any serious movement, whether it’s on the return of the refugees or on reconciling with his own people,” he said at the Doha Forum for political dialogue.

Al-Thani also voiced concern that the civil war could threaten Syria‘s territorial integrity if no political solution to the conflict were found.

The Doha Forum was founded in 2003 with the aim of bringing together leaders to discuss global challenges. It is taking place this year on December 7-8.

The Israeli military says it is reinforcing its presence in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights near the Syrian border.

“In accordance with the assessment of the situation, it was decided to further reinforce forces for defense missions in the Golan Heights area, near the Syrian border,” an Israeli Defense Forces spokesperson wrote on Telegram.

“The reinforcement of forces will enable the strengthening of defense in the area, and the preparation of forces for various scenarios in the sector,” the statement continued.
 

The foreign ministers of Turkey, Russia and Iran are to meet in the Qatari capital, Doha, to discuss the escalation of violence in Syria amid the lightning rebel offensive.

Despite supporting opposing sides in Syria’s civil war, the three countries have been working together since 2017 to end the conflict in the so-called Astana process.

Both Moscow and Tehran have offered military help to Syrian President Bashar Assad as he faces a renewed flare-up, while Ankara seems to approve the rebel offensive. 

Russia first entered the civil conflict in Syria in 2015 at Assad’s request and aided him in regaining two-thirds of the country after his regime lost control of large swathes of territory to various rebel actors.

Iran sees Assad’s Alawite-dominated Ba’athist government as an important Shiite ally in the region that acts as a counterweight to Saudi Arabian and US influence.

Ankara, meanwhile, is interested in a stable Syria to enable the return of the nearly 3 million Syrian refugees currently in Turkey. At the same time, Turkish forces are deployed in Syria’s northwest to fight Kurdish forces, seen by Ankara as a threat to the Turkish state.

Local opposition groups have taken control of most of the southern Daraa province, including Daraa city, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

“Local factions have taken control of more areas in Daraa province, including Daraa city … they now control more than 90% of the province, as regime forces successively pulled out,” the Observatory said.

The developments in Daraa come as an Islamist-led rebel alliance has taken the key cities of Aleppo and Hama in the north and center of the country in what is seen as a major challenge to President Bashar Assad‘s power.

Daraa province, which borders Jordan, was dubbed the “cradle of the revolution” early in Syria‘s civil war, which erupted in 2012.

It was there that activists accused the government of detaining and torturing a group of boys for writing anti-Assad slogans on walls at their school in 2011, leading to anti-regime protests that were brutally repressed.

The province has experienced considerable unrest in the past few years despite a truce brokered by Russia, one of Assad’s staunchest allies.

The opposition-affiliated Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has been monitoring the civil war in Syria by means of a wide network of witnesses on the ground.